{"id":3112,"date":"2012-11-09T09:27:25","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T15:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/?p=3112"},"modified":"2012-11-20T06:43:34","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T12:43:34","slug":"unm-researcher-on-climate-change-and-fall-of-the-mayan-civilization-featured-in-science-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/unm-researcher-on-climate-change-and-fall-of-the-mayan-civilization-featured-in-science-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"UNM Researcher on Climate Change and Fall of The Mayan Civilization featured in Science Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Some<\/a>Article Preview By David Gobeil<\/p>\n

The Mayan civilization grew to be one of the most culturally and scientifically advanced peoples of their time period. Then, inexplicably over a fairly short period of time the Mayan civilization, in all greatness and advancements, totally disintegrated.\u00a0 There have been numerous theories on how the Mayan civilization seemed collapse so quickly, including disease, invasions from other peoples and famine due to extended droughts.\u00a0 Well, it appears the thesis about droughts leading to widespread famine has gained a lot more credibility after some researchers, including those from the University of New Mexico were able to accurately deconstruct and date mineral deposits on an ancient stalagmite found in a Belizean cave. \u00a0\u00a0 The precise levels of rainfall over a period of time were ascertained through a process of radiogenic isotope dating and analysis at the University of New Mexico. The analysis clearly showed a period of decreased rainfall which coincides with archeological and historical dates that researchers say the Mayan civilization collapsed.<\/p>\n

Read the article at its SOURCE<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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The cover story in the jour\u00adnal \u201cSci\u00adence\u201d this week fea\u00adtures long-term research by an inter\u00adna\u00adtional group of anthro\u00adpol\u00ado\u00adgists and earth and cli\u00admate sci\u00aden\u00adtists, includ\u00ading researchers from the Uni\u00adver\u00adsity of New Mex\u00adico, who took a care\u00adful look at the impact of cli\u00admate change on Maya polit\u00adi\u00adcal sys\u00adtems. Their paper, \u201cDevel\u00adop\u00adment and Dis\u00adin\u00adte\u00adgra\u00adtion of Maya Polit\u00adi\u00adcal Sys\u00adtems in Response to Cli\u00admate Change<\/a>,\u201d explores the effect of vari\u00ada\u00adtions in rainfall.<\/p>\n

To doc\u00adu\u00adment the rain\u00adfall amounts, the group ana\u00adlyzed a sta\u00adlag\u00admite from Yok Balum cave in Belize.\u00a0They pre\u00adcisely tracked an increase in rain\u00adfall between A.D. 450 and 600, then a decline in rain\u00adfall, punc\u00adtu\u00adated by a series of short droughts 200 years\u00a0later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis cor\u00adre\u00adlates with explo\u00adsive growth and rapid expan\u00adsion of Maya states across the low\u00adlands, the pro\u00adlif\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion of kings, and of carved mon\u00adu\u00adments that talk about their suc\u00adcesses,\u201d said Keith Prufer, asso\u00adciate pro\u00adfes\u00adsor of Anthro\u00adpol\u00adogy at UNM and one of the prin\u00adci\u00adpal investigators.\u00a0\u201cStarting around the mid\u00addle of the sev\u00adenth cen\u00adtury you see a decline in rain\u00adfall, cor\u00adre\u00adspond\u00ading with increas\u00ading inci\u00addents of war\u00adfare between com\u00adpet\u00ading states. There were a series of short droughts simul\u00adta\u00adne\u00adous with a col\u00adlapse of poli\u00adties in the south\u00adern low\u00adlands of Belize and Guatemala.\u00a0 The north\u00adern part of the Maya cul\u00adture in the Yucatan Penin\u00adsula con\u00adtin\u00adued to flour\u00adish well into the ninth cen\u00adtury when a mas\u00adsive pro\u00adtracted drought begin\u00adning in the 11th cen\u00adtury cor\u00adre\u00adsponds with a dra\u00admatic col\u00adlapse at Chichen Itza and may have pre\u00advented the recov\u00adery of extant com\u00adplex polit\u00adi\u00adcal systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pre\u00adcise chrono\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal recon\u00adstruc\u00adtion of the cli\u00admate record was con\u00adducted at the Radi\u00adogenic Iso\u00adtope Lab\u00ado\u00adra\u00adtory at UNM Earth and Plan\u00ade\u00adtary Sci\u00adences, directed by Prin\u00adci\u00adpal Inves\u00adti\u00adga\u00adtor Yemane Asmerom along with Senior Research Sci\u00aden\u00adtist Vic\u00adtor Polyak and anthro\u00adpol\u00adogy doc\u00adtoral stu\u00addent Val\u00ado\u00adrie Aquino.\u00a0Some of the tech\u00adni\u00adcal work was done by Aquino who drilled tiny trenches in the sta\u00adlag\u00admite and mea\u00adsured ratios of Ura\u00adnium and Tho\u00adrium iso\u00adtopes from pow\u00adders to accu\u00adrately date the age of dif\u00adfer\u00adent lay\u00aders linked to cli\u00admate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article Preview By David Gobeil The Mayan civilization grew to be one of the most culturally and scientifically advanced peoples of their time period. Then, inexplicably over a fairly short period of time the Mayan civilization, in all greatness and advancements, totally disintegrated.\u00a0 There have been numerous theories on how the Mayan civilization seemed collapse… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[578],"tags":[653,615],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3115,"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112\/revisions\/3115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belizepropertyagent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}